Man who shot dead two men on his boat is cleared of murder charges after judge rules he feared for his life

Murder charges against Michael Monahan, 65, from Florida, were dropped

Murder charges have been dropped against a man who was at one stage facing the death penalty for the murder of two men he shot during an argument on his boat.

Prosecutors dropped the charges against 65-year-old Michael Monahan, from Florida, in the shooting deaths of Raymond Mohlman and Matthew Vittum.

Monahan told police Mohlman and Vittum came on to his boat in April and began threatening him. That's when, he says, he shot and killed the two.

Circuit Judge Richard Oftedahl dismissed the two first-degree murder charges against the 65-year-old after ruling he was justified in shooting the men out of fear for his life.

He used the controversial 'Stand Your Ground' statute when making the ruling, an act signed into law in 2005 which gives a person the right to respond with force when threatened with death or bodily harm.

The dispute started aboard a 35-foot sail boat anchored near Phil Foster Park.

A Riviera Beach police report said that they arrived at the park on April 3 to find Monahan paddling away in a kayak from the two dead bodies.

According to the Sun Sentinel, Monahan told police that the men tried to remove him from the sail boat which he had bought six months earlier for $1,000.

Raymond Mohlman, a one-time competitive wrestler, is said to have accused the 65-year-old of racking up $500 in tickets in his name as he had not registered the boat properly.

Mohlman had previously confronted Monahan about the tickets, saying the fees prevented him from taking a trip back to Belize, where he had spent much of the last ten months.

Dead: Matthew Vittum was shot and killed by Monahan when he boarded his boat and allegedly threatened him

Witnesses at the scene were said to have told police that it was clear the men's intentions were to evict Mohlman or kill him.

Monahan's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Elizabeth Ramsey, pointed out that the men never showed her client any proof of the tickets and that he felt cornered when they boarded his boat.

In the motion to dismiss the charges, she wrote: 'Monahan unequivocally stated, "I was afraid for my life".'

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According to the Sentinel, autopsy reports also showed that Mohlman's blood-alcohol level was at .23 when he died, nearly three times the level at which drivers are presumed legally impaired.

Vittum's blood-alcohol level was .11 and the autopsy concluded he had cocaine, oxycodone and marijuana in his system when he was killed.

'I don't understand it. My whole family, we just didn't think it would happen this way. The hardest part is not getting any more phone calls from him. I miss hearing his voice'

In her attempt to stop the charges from being dismissed, Assistant State Attorney Jacqui Charbonneau argued that neither man was armed when they boarded the boat, that they were a distance away and neither man touched Monahan.

In the 11-page ruling filed today Judge Oftedahl reconstructed details of the Sunday afternoon shooting, calling it a clear case of justified force under the 'Stand your Ground' act.

He said the law didn't require the men either to be armed or actually commit physical violence for Monahan to have a reasonable fear that they would either kill or severely harm him aboard the boat that had been his home since October 2010.

Raymond Mohlman's mother Judy said she expected there to at least be a trial and that it doesn't answer any questions she has about her son's death.

It is also the second time she has lost a child as her daughter died at 21 from an epileptic seizure.

She told the Sun Sentinel that though her son 'wasn't perfect', she believes Monahan got away with murder.

She said: 'I don't understand it. My whole family, we just didn't think it would happen this way.

'The hardest part is not getting any more phone calls from him. I miss hearing his voice.'

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Murder charges dismissed in case where man, 65, shot two dead claiming he feared for his life